As part of Creative Intersections: Traces of Dragons, that is curated by Vertical Submarine, brand tenants of Funan Mall were paired with local artists to create their own versions and interpretations of the Dragon, while responding to a poem written by local writer Yeow Kai Chai.
Together with local apparel brand and social enterprise Our Barehands, The Ochre Home and Our Barehands presents: A Tale of Tails, a collaborative interpretation of the year of the Dragon as part of Singapore Art Week 2024, where we created a fabric art installation in-store using fabric off-cuts from Our Barehands pieces layered and suspended from a rod to create a downward flow from the ceiling as a background, and continuing to drape on the floor. Dried botanicals are scattered in clusters in the middle ground in abstract arrangements, with the glass window display in the foreground painted with acrylic paint in abstract style gestural brush strokes. A limited edition wearable vest was also designed for sale in tandem with the fabric installation, also in a similar layered fabric style.
The installation was intended as a spatial and experiential one, where viewers can view the piece from outside the shopfront, or alternatively invited to step into the installation as a photo opportunity.
A tale of tails
Fabric installation
In Chinese cosmology, the colour of a dragon’s scales represents the elements in nature, and also the different powers and abilities it possesses, as they are seen as the embodiment of the forces of nature; green scales are associated with wood, red scales with fire, and black scales with water. Throughout various depictions of the dragon in mythologies and folklores of different cultures, the dragon is known to be many things - a figure of worship, a fearsome creature, a magical vassal.
‘A tale of tails’ plays on the layering of off-cut fabrics to create the visual of the scales of a dragon’s body and its trailing tail, each piece representing a different understanding of the dragon in different cultures and stories, and collectively forming how we perceive the dragon in the modern day.
